IUSB recipe for ‘good things’

SPEA students help Mishawaka mayor solve city’s ‘real world’ problems

The SPEA public management class requires students to work with various departments from the city of Mishawaka to propose solutions for a myriad of problems—from promoting city park activities to creating procedures for labor grievances.

Professor Leda McIntyre Hall said the key for the last five years has been working closely with Mishawaka Mayor Robert Beutter, who gets each city department to submit real policy questions or problems.

The class is divided into groups, each with a problem to investigate. After a meeting with the mayor and department heads to discuss the situations, the class goes to work. Two more meetings with department heads and the students give final presentations with the recommendations based on the groups’ research.

One project this fall investigated promoting park programs to children ages 6-12, Hall said. SPEA students designed a questionnaire devised to determine what the children wanted in park programs and planned a children’s day at the park to distribute resulting information through a redesigned summer brochure, bookmarks and a calendar featuring artwork created by children.

“About half of the recommendations have been implemented over the last five years,” Hall said. “The exercise takes away all the hypotheticals of textbook assignments—like there is enough money, that politics don’t matter, that everyone gets along and that the departments work together.”

Students become involved with the reality of city government, according to Hall, and learn to negotiate and work with the realities of problem solving and bureaucracies.

Beutter said the affiliation with IU South Bend has created a “series of good things” for his city and the assignment has given the students a “real world atmosphere.” Considering the cost of five or six consultants at $10,000 every fall for five years, estimated savings over the years for the city has been at least $100,000.